Cooks Global Foods jumps 13% on Esquires expansion plan

Feb. 13 (BusinessDesk) – Shares in Cooks Global
Foods, which has the global franchise rights for Esquires
Coffee Houses outside of New Zealand, Australia and Canada,
jumped 13 percent after the company detailed expansion plans
for the coffee chain in the Middle East.

Cooks expects its
first Esquires outlets to open in Oman and Qatar within the
next six months after signing a master franchise agreement
for the countries with Al Barzah Restaurant Management, the
Auckland-based company said in a statement.

The agreement
adds to Esquires franchise agreements covering 16 stores in
the Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the company
said. Cooks says it has commitments for more than 80
Esquires coffee houses across the Arab economic alliance
countries, where it sees potential in high levels of
disposal income and economic growth.

Shares in Cooks,
which are listed on the small cap NZAX market, rose 2 cents
to 17 cents as a result of four trades in which 116,000
shares changed hands.

Stuart Deeks, co-founder of Esquires
in New Zealand, has been sounding out further growth
opportunities for the business in India, Turkey, Romania,
Egypt, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK, Ireland and Canada, the
company said.

Separately, Cooks said it has bought the
Design Environments business which designs interiors for its
coffee chains, for an undisclosed sum in
cash.

The Wellington-based BusinessDesk team led by former Bloomberg Asian top editor Jonathan Underhill and Qantas Award-winning journalist and commentator Pattrick Smellie provides a daily news feed for a serious business audience.

CONTACT BUSINESSDESK

Prime Minister John Key says it is “not the government’s preferred option” to make a fresh capital injection into the troubled state-owned coal miner, Solid Energy, but dodged journalists’ questions at his weekly press conference on whether that might prove necessary... More>>

NZCU Baywide says that once it was found to have committed a breach of a former staff member’s privacy, it had attempted to resolve the matter... the censure and remedies for its actions taken almost three years ago are “severe” but accepted, and will hopefully draw a line under the matter. More>>

PayPal has ceased processing payments for Mega, the file storage and encryption firm looking to join the New Zealand stock market via a reverse listing of TRS Investments, amid claims it is not a legitimate cloud storage service. More>>

The New Zealand government's operating deficit was smaller than expected in the first six months of the financial year, as the consumption and corporate tax take rose ahead of forecast in December, having lagged estimates in previous months. More>>